[GreenKeys] Is there anyone on Greenkeys that is say under 40 ?

[Doug Alderdice]

On 12/31/2015 9:47 AM, Jack wrote:
> You can never be too rich, too thin, or have enough Teletypes!
>
> Jack K2TTY


I think that can be said of any collecting!

Checking into this thread at 0x33 ... kinda like that number instead of 
the Base 10 version, ;)  Not quite an elder statesman, but not a 
grasshopper, either.

I got started with Teletypes at about age 18 when I bought a M.33 KSR 
from a surplus house, mail order, with the hopes of interfacing it to my 
Timex/Sinclair 1000 computer (this was 1982).  The interface never came 
together, but later after I got my ham license I interfaced the 33 to a 
Kantronics UTU and got on the air with RTTY with that.

Actually, I lie about getting started with Teletypes.  Just remembered 
that my first contact with a Teletype machine was in middle school.  I 
went to a month-long Saturday day camp sort of thing offered by a local 
private school and they had a "computer" course where we used M.33s 
attached to a PDP/11.  We did some simple BASIC programming, mostly just 
putting together a bunch of PRINT statements to spit out some text.

In high school I went into the computer science program and we used the 
school's IBM/360, but that was on punched cards done with 029 
keypunches, so no Teletypes, but the school's electronics lab had a 
PDP/8 with a M.33 attached to it, and I used that from time to time.

After college I got my 33 going on the air as mentioned above and then 
started finding more machines.  That led to a couple of 28 KSRs and a 
Model 12.  Then a UGC-20.  And on it went.  One of the 28KSRs I rescued 
from the curb in front of a social services agency.  It probably had 
been their TTY machine.  I got it into my minivan about a block ahead of 
the garbage truck!

Currently in the livery:

M.12 (Complete but not running)
M.33 KSR
M.32 ASR
M.28 KSR x 3
M.28 ASR
UGC-20
M.15 RO
M.26  (my most recent acquisition earlier this year)
M.14

The 33 and 32 are in storage, but the rest are in the house and most are 
on the local loop on which I can print from ITTY.  I can't say that I 
have used a real machine on the air in quite some time, though a ham 
friend and I had a weekly RTTY sked for a number of years in the 90s and 
I'd use the 33 and later one of the 28 KSRs.

I am enjoying reading others' stories in this thread ... and it's 
refreshing to see some younger folks on board.

73,

Doug, KA2WFT